I’m starting to pick up speed now.
Saturday’s a good day to practice, actually. I drop my wife off at her meeting, I drive home, put the kids to bed, take a quick nap (natch), and I’m ready to go. Knocked out the first sixteen bars of the second variation today, and I’m ready to keep going.
What I’m concerned about is not mechanics though. It’s dynamics, and touch.
First of all, the Goldbergs really were written for harpsichord, and I’m not playing them on a harpsichord. Harpsichords have tiny, tiny keys for one thing, and I don’t have tiny, tiny hands. Plus, I don’t have a harpsichord. Heck, the piano isn’t even in the apartment. I’m practicing on a fine electronic keyboard. It’s actually quite nice, serves me well. Good dynamic range.
Still, I don’t quite know how to play these so they sound good yet. I can play them so that it sounds like I’m having a good time. But I keep playing them differently. As I said before, I keep it pretty detached… but then, I find that a more legato line in the eighth notes in the left hand brings out the 2:1 counterpoint… but it sounds too precious when the eighth notes are in the right hand. Then I start thinking, maybe Glenn Gould was on to something when he banged out the first variation at forte, and I’m totally wrong to build slowly, since the second and third variation are pretty quiet and bubbly. I’m going to be putting my friends to sleep with this eighty-minute monstrosity if I play it politely.
And so on, and so forth. What I try to remember is that… I’m not unmusical. Really. It’ll come.
Maybe if I play it on organ instead…
